


Baited Breaths

by LegendofMajora



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegendofMajora/pseuds/LegendofMajora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The joke is that Izaya is Shinra's when he dies. Too bad it's not funny anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baited Breaths

Shinra makes the joke first, completely unexpected by the violence that comes in Izaya's next joke taking the first joke completely serious by surprise and there's a wonder in the world Shinra isn't at the bad end of Izaya's switchblade. Just a simple, harmless joke about when Izaya finally meets his untimely death, he gets to preserve him like a mummy and wrap him up so that his ugliness is physically as horrid as his inner personality. Shinra doesn't expect much other than the strange nasty joke that comes in place of his, taking standstill residence for years even after high school no one mentions it, not between the two of them.

They never speak of it again. It's better and silent quietude that way in never wanting to mention the final barrier of crossing the final boundary there is for life, not wanting to reach a final destination and he _knows_ how much Izaya hates death and mortality so they don't joke about it too much except for the casual reference of killing each other whenever Shinra patches him up. Most times are Shizuo and his crazy rampages, in Izaya's words, as he fixes broken arms, torn ligaments, and bruises from everything of extremes to in between in finding some common ground where mortality is accepted as common fate and higher ground. Death happens, they both know.

Izaya is not as immortal as he seems. Invincible, flawless, perfect and cut sharp to survive and thrive. That's how it's meant to be with such a tiny structure for being male and with bigger opponents, nothing fazes him when he takes on the bite of pulling and ripping off more than he can bother to chew or fit in his mouth. Anything to get his rocks off, maybe, and Shinra doesn't ask in the silent moments of just remembering why they are friends and that friends don't try to make jokes about possible vivisection or dissection if ever possible or deadly serious. Izaya laughs about it later, tells Shinra the one and only time that his organs are up to him and him alone when he meets an untimely death.

They really thing they're joking. Both of them do, laughing along playing to the strange rhythm of trying to figure this life out and while it's not as hard as others have it there are still twists and turns of pretending not to be normal and just ugly monsters while Izaya has the audacity to call himself a god. Shinra plays along, not wanting to tell anything more when being human has never been appealing and Izaya is full of holes if he looks close enough at the laser-cut diamond flesh of rocks and shaky beginnings up front close and personal. They keep their distances.

It's hilarious, laughing about it when Izaya has bullets pulled from his stomach and nearly bleeds to death when he's high on painkillers mentioning he loves humans and he can't like Shinra when the doctor is not human at all and never has been. Shinra takes it as a compliment, plays along, and threatens Izaya with sticking his dead heart and intelligently stupid brain in formaldehyde-filled mason jars for the collector's fantasy. They both laugh then when Shinra stitches him up and Izaya is knocked out on anesthetics for the longest time. Maybe the cold and low body weight is finally getting to him.

Izaya claims himself as only Shinra's when they're in another routine patch-job of this time Shizuo's work and Shinra may as well ask, what the hell happened this time and Izaya's going to laugh and laugh and laugh until his eyes are stinging and he has to look away. That's okay, take the time it needs to feel alive and compose himself long enough to not have a breakdown or anything similar, gods don't have such pitiable excuses, in front of a monster-thing like Shinra. As long as it takes. If it's okay in the end for Izaya to laugh it off Shinra doesn't feel like laughing to a silly joke anymore. Sometimes he thinks that maybe they're going too far because unlike Izaya he sees the ending of jokes a little closer with every year of getting older and somewhat wiser.

None will ever be the same and Izaya won't when he doesn't manage much more but destructive behaviors. Shinra sometimes worries a little more than necessary. They're friends and there's never any harm in trying to look out for an idiot who is too devilish for his own good.

Shizuo comes in the picture as someone Shinra always imagines as the one to finally take Izaya's life, stamp him out of existence crush him and be the be all end all of everything Izaya attempts. Any plots or schemes hatched nearby become prey to Shizuo and Shinra watches as Izaya adapts, still frustrated and running around with his feet stomping the ground to rouse the beast from his slumber, claiming his territory of humans. Always something to keep Shinra away from his beloved and always with the stark light of his living room, working on Izaya covered in blood that may or may not be his staining the floor and more often than not a jacket sopping with blood. The best he can do is sigh, knock Izaya out with painkillers, and hope for the best which never really comes as much as Shinra likes to see somewhat happy endings. Only ones that tailor to him.

His fairy tales are not enough to save him in the countless times of being ripped apart and stuffed into one piece sewn up and never taking enough painkillers. Whatever is enough to get through another day of tirelessly plotting with his way or a bitter fight, Shinra knowing enough to not care too much at the way Shizuo keeps fighting Izaya. Izaya is normally the one who refuses to admit how injured he is until he can barely stand, too tired and too sore to move much further and never having another doctor. Their little joke of morbid origin comes up in a one-sided conversation of Izaya, promising the little things like pinkies in a jar of jam and his heart, if he has one, to be preserved and studied. Find what makes him tick even if it's the brain's job and Shinra thinks Izaya is speaking from past experience instead of his normal self.

It's worrying when Izaya doesn't show up for weeks at a time, still the same old annoying informant with too many things to say none important and too many jobs for Celty. Shizuo's fights with him are taking their toll when his ankle is fragmented and it takes a cast and double the order of painkillers just to make Izaya sit still. Something uncomfortable between them when Shinra works, never wanting to voice it and he realizes that herein lies the problem of not being willing enough to save a friend when he needs it.

Izaya never pays any heed to Shinra's warnings that he needs to move a little slower because his body isn't strong enough to keep handling abuse being thrown around like a rag doll and picking himself up off the ground by the time the damage is too much to bear. True to his sadistic nature Izaya always hums about his heart kept in a jar of preservatives when Shinra fixes him again and again, no longer funny when Izaya finally stops. None of them are really too sure for why he does what he does and the worst part is that Izaya still is bitter and cynical to the extreme of his personality though never saying more that actually matters. All of what he says, most of the time, is nonsense. Hiding and covering when he slides under the rantings and musings to keep him away further and further from people.

So the fights continue, Izaya never sleeps, and what else is new? Shinra thinks Shizuo will be the death of Izaya these days, hearing of interesting stories from Izaya when he manages to pry them from a friend he feels is slipping away, biting his tongue when he wants to ask more. Izaya doesn't say much of importance to Shinra about the injuries. Only when they're purple and swollen to the painful point of severely limited movement does he mention in a casual tone as if talking about the hotpot Shinra doesn't invite him to. It's a mistake, this is. So is the hotpot Shinra finds out Izaya knows and while they're kind of somewhat friends it's harder to care, pulling away further and further from Izaya and the grim joke between them is all but forever forgotten. Hiding in the corner of his mind, he can feel it there even if he doesn't know what it is.

Though when it's not Shizuo attempting murder in the first degree in the most violent and creative ways possible Izaya can be found contemplating unhealthy thoughts at the top of high-rising buildings and Shinra pretends he doesn't ask Celty to tell him when these incidents happen. Shizuo should know better than to push Izaya off an edge of a building and the surprising part is that he's not doing anything to keep Izaya alive. It feels suffocating, knowing whenever Izaya shows up in his office that there's nothing he knows he can do for a friend who is losing to himself—and that is the worst fear of all. Izaya may be obsessed with death but it doesn't mean that it doesn't take the toll of graying everything in the informant's life, Shinra watches the life fade from his eyes replaced with aging aggression and shutting himself away.

There are marks of self-harm on shoulders and thighs and the only way Shinra knows is because Izaya is hurting himself too often on Shizuo. The blond brute is an _idiot_ because he doesn't know and Izaya gets the strange look in his eyes when they speak of Shizuo before he demands a subject change. Shinra later asks Celty to convey the message Izaya won't even send, but in a way so gentle and careful that there are no big surprises and he thinks it may be able to work if he can just get to Izaya before his own brand of heavy pessimism takes its toll and drags him down with it. It's not a solution to the agonized watching of his friend, taking his own life with every scarring mark on pale flesh and looking thinner each week. He's never sure why a monster would turn itself into a god unless lonely and painfully feeling isolated.

Even if—Even if he offers and attempts these sorts of things he wonders if truly anything will help Izaya. Of course he's made mistakes and (remember the hotpot party? Does he remember the expression and the turning away and maybe thinking something is just too wrong here?) there's no one else to blame for heavy stupid mistakes and he doesn't care to think or notice and maybe even accept it's the last chances he has. All before Izaya suffocates and he's not there to watch and he's hoping with some wishful disturbing thinking that Izaya will fix himself. He's supposed to, isn't he?

So—so it doesn't hurt—it's not supposed to when Izaya dies. Not from the man-made patented brand of isolation and monstrous behavior killing himself and ripping his mind out from the inside like the cock and load of a barrel pressing against his head when there are no second chances. Nothing at all and Shinra doesn't know when he doesn't think to look and respond as he assumes everything will be fine if he can't.

(It just hurts a little more, he thinks, because Izaya kills himself instead.)

Taking breaths, baiting for Izaya to show up again wounded from another fight it doesn't make any sense at all, not at all he's sure this isn't how the story goes when Shizuo shows up with Celty and there's no word of the informant—friend—nightmare for days. Shizuo doesn't say much of anything and perhaps it's for the best if not even he can keep a lid on it when Shinra supposes he's suppressed too many things when coming to the mental and physical health of Izaya and he sees it as a failure in conscious reasoning. Not that there's any reason at all to be like this calling Izaya's phone Celty talking with Shizuo and an answering voice to voicemail and nothing is right because not even Izaya's secretary is picking up and there is nothing to cater to the mysterious absence.

Shinra never thinks of the joke they once had as funny anymore. Not after Izaya shows up in autopsy because there is not enough blood in his body and hospitals are disgusting so he takes one last request and listens to the ugly white declaration of death before Celty can react poorly. This isn't something she's used to so he understands even when it pains him that they have to pick Izaya up when no one else is around and they figure Namie has been dismissed when there is blood all over the floor and his wrists are slit, an interestingly painful way to twist into reminding Shinra that he failed Izaya.

He doesn't know if there will ever be the same Izaya in the body, attempting to resuscitate and bring back life, breathe breaths of air and just stop playing this game for keeps when it's not funny anymore. Invincibility isn't worth it when his friend is lying in a guest room and dying because there's still just a little bit of hope and more stubbornness mixing into the cocktail of not wanting to let go. Emotional reactions aren't him and with the request and pleading considering his dignity and a bribe he manages to get matching blood, stitches, and an extra bottle of bitter alcohol he hates when tonight is going to be a long night to drink away when not being a doctor.

Friendship means something undetermined for this long and it's okay as long as Shinra can stitch up the lifeless wounds that still leak a little extra blood being transferred in and oxygen masks from chemical solutions to this little problem. It's a lot bigger than he expects but the tentative care to treat and fix is still mentioned in passing when he wraps Izaya's arms, tight enough to remind that even if Izaya is _dead_ he can still feel that Shinra doesn't think this joke is so funny anymore and _please come back now._ As long as it takes he says and he means it with every intention that he doesn't want this friendship to end quite yet and he still wishes there's a human in the body that is left behind. Something to hold onto when he needs to reassure himself that he's not completely wrong about this even if he is because he's a selfish bastard and so is Izaya for not saying anything and truly he feels like it's his fault though he'll never say.

The joke of a dead heart and a death-sticky brain in a formaldehyde jar comes back more than once as soon as the first flatline hits and there's nothing more that he can do, give it up and he keeps trying when Celty says it's best just to let him go when even she doesn't understand why Izaya does this and how on earth he can still cause those cuts into the ribs from delicately-prying fingers and spilling inside there's a strange relationship between them. He's the doctor. He knows when it hurts.

Coma is like death and sitting pretty filled with blood to make sure everything is kept in working order and stitched tightly shut even though the mouth has to open sometime and Shinra is tiring himself out with waiting for too long. Celty has to be patient and Shizuo doesn't come around so it's just him when he isolates the thoughts even if he says it's alright if Izaya dies because on the inside it's the entire reaction besides the calm outside appearance. All the dragging breaths and waiting, waiting and counting for Izaya to make an appearance and call him an idiot or whatever it takes to be normal again and go back to still breathing and still alive when death is an uncomfortable subject.

And he tries. He really does.

At least he gets to hug Izaya, the first and last time, before he dies. It's calm and gentle and Izaya can barely move, eyes tired and weary and he doesn't care because there is no life in his eyes that Shinra's ever seen still lingering.

It's not funny anymore.

_It never was._

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the kink meme, page seven part twelve [here.](http://drrrkink.livejournal.com/7084.html?thread=26013100#t26013100)
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
